Iraqi prisoner abuse inquiry ‘a whitewash’, says former investigator

The inquiry into British soldiers’ alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners has become ‘little more than a whitewash’, a former investigator on the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) has claimed.

British troops have been accused of abusing prisoners over a period of more than five years in Basra (Picture: Reuters)

Former Royal Navy wren Louise Thomas said she was forced to resign from the team after six months because no progress was being made in spite of video evidence showing prisoners being abused.

Ms Thomas said she had seen around 1,600 interrogation videos which showed Iraqi detainees being subjected to sleep deprivation and beatings.

She claims that other IHAT investigators were simply ‘not interested’ in the footage.

‘I saw a really dark side of the British Army,’ she told the Guardian.

‘The videos showed really quite terrible abuses. But some of the IHAT investigators just weren’t interested.’

To date, some 128 Iraqis have alleged that British troops systematically abused prisoners between March 2003 and December 2008 while they controlled Basra in southern Iraq following Saddam Hussein ‘s downfall.

Ms Thomas’s claims follow the Royal Military police’s removal from IHAT by the court of appeal in March due to ‘the public perception of the possibility of bias’.

She said that some of her fellow investigators made remarks such as ‘who cares’, ‘they’re terrorists’ or ‘they’re only bombers’ while watching the interrogation videos.

‘They would laugh at me, because I was interested and concerned,’ she added.

‘They would say “Here comes Miss Marple” when I came by.’

Ms Thomas also claimed that the Ministry of Defence had withheld some of the videos from IHAT.

An MoD spokesman responded: ‘All of these allegations of abuse are known to the Ministry of Defence and Iraq Historical Allegations Team, which is why the independent IHAT is already investigating them.

‘The MoD has co-operated fully, including the provision of all known evidence.

‘We are confident in the IHAT’s abilities and following the outcome of their investigations, action will be considered against individuals where appropriate. Any criticisms about IHAT itself are for the organisation to answer.’